The Portland Winterhawks got their first three goals from three different lines and went on to beat the Edmonton Oil Kings 5-2 Saturday in Game 1 of the Western Hockey League championship finals.

Throughout the playoffs, opposing teams have talked about how Hawks coach and general manager Mike Johnston can roll out lines up and down his roster with confidence. Saturday at the Moda Center, 10,947 fans saw how that depth frustrated the Oil Kings skaters and created relentless pressure on goaltender Tristan Jarry.

The Hawks took a 3-0 lead in the first period, Edmonton cut the lead to 3-2 in the second period before Mathew Dumba made it 4-2 with a power-play goal 37 seconds before the break. Bittner’s second goal, at 3:41 in the third, gave Portland the breathing room it needed.

Portland had to go without Brendan Leipsic, a first-line left winger whose charisma and emotion can lift the Hawks if they go flat. But he was suspended for Game 1 after a spearing incident in the series-clinching win against Kelowna.

That opened the gate for Bittner, the right winger who plays opposite Leipsic on that first line, to have his first multi-goal game in the playoffs.

That’s what depth can do.

“It was nice, it was fun,” Bittner said. “It was obviously a little bit of a confidence-booster, but it was two good plays from my teammates that made it happen.”

Keegan Iverson, who centers Portland’s third line, scored first, Bittner was next and Chase De Leo, from the second line, got the third goal and the Hawks skated off the ice and into the locker room for the first intermission with a 3-0 lead.

Iverson, along with Dominic Turgeon and Alex Schoenborn, were cobbled together on the third line in the first half of the season and have given the Hawks a big, strong presence that’s hard to counter. Iverson’s goal, from Turgeon and defenseman Josh Hanson, came off a rebound, when he slipped behind Edmonton’s defense.

“(Before the game) I said there would be a lot of mixing and matching of players and personnel out there on the lines,” Johnston said. “But I wasn’t going to change that line. I really liked how that line played for us tonight.”

Bittner’s first goal came off a nifty drop pass from Derrick Pouliot, and started from Nicolas Petan. De Leo’s goal started with a lot of hard work from behind the net by Oliver Bjorkstrand, and started from Anton Cederholm.

The Oil Kings responded in the second period, with goals from Brett Pollock and Henrik Samuelsson. Pollock’s goal came 20 seconds into the period, and Samuelsson’s came at 2:20. Momentum swung to Edmonton and the Hawks were on their heels.

“I think our team is used to those momentum shifts,” Johnston said. “I felt that the bench was OK. We’d made a couple mistakes. But we’ve been through this in the playoffs.”

Dumba’s goal put the Hawks back on track. He crushed a slapshot that Jarry probably heard rocket past him, stick side, on a 4-on-3 power play with 37 seconds remaining in the second. So, the Hawks went to the locker room with energy and momentum that was punctuated by Bittner’s second goal early in the third period.

Bittner scored on a one-timer that Jarry misplayed, one of few mistakes he made in the game.

“I thought (Jarry) gave us a chance to compete tonight,” Oil Kings coach Derek Laxdal said. “If you look at the three goals we gave up in the first period, we had some missed assigments. … We made some mistakes, but you’ve got to give Portland credit for putting us in that pressure situation.”

Jarry finished with 31 saves on 36 shots; at the other end of the ice, Portland’s Corbin Boes had 31 saves on 33 shots.